Konami Kids Playground: Alphabet Circus Review

Finally! A game at Sam Bishop's speed!

I've mentioned it in the past, but Sony's repositioning of the PlayStation 2 as a casual machine has been met with a handful of, well, let's call them "interesting" prospects. For the most part, it's meant a handful of web-based games that have gotten a console analog, but Konami's approach to snaring a slightly different part of the gaming market is genuinely interesting.

As part of their over-arching Kids Playground games, Alphabet Circus marries Konami's wealth of experience in making games that use a dance pad to help 2 to 5 year-old kids learn the basics: colors, numbers and basic association. All of the games use a slightly smaller Dance Dance Revolution pad repurposed with Back and X buttons (in lieu of the usual Select and Start), and the normal Square, Triangle and Circle buttons remain, assigned Blue, Yellow and Red solids to help with the games. The original X button has become a Star, but the games can technically be played with a standard controller (like playing DDR with a DualShock 2, though it almost completely side-steps the intended goal of the software).

Monkey power!

Being an entertainment package though, the dozen or so mini-games first introduce kids to simple timing (with a jumping game that uses all the buttons), color matching and a -- what is probably best described as -- light cardio workout. From there, the nine other games are broken down into three separate categories. Most of these games are echoed in almost cut/paste fashion across all four of the current Kids Playground offerings out there, but Alphabet Circus' focus, fittingly, is geared toward the ABCs, meaning that while you'll still see games where you have to run along a path or hop from one thing to the next, the actual educational involvement sticks to teaching kids things like what letters are and what they spell.

None of the games actually have a proper "end" per se (you can keep playing them and the game will pause a few times to crank up the difficulty ever so slightly before finally spitting you back to the main menu); only a running tally for that game actually indicates progress, and sadly the scores aren't saved between games. But this isn't a high score battle so much as a way to give your wee tykes a start in matching colors, improving reaction times and foot/eye coordination, etc.

Visually and aurally, the games are simple exercises in getting feet from one part of the mat to the other. You'll hear plucky, bouncy little tunes, and each game is introduced with a jabbering character that briefly explains the basics. All of the activities offer plenty of positive comments for encouragement, and nary a chastising quip to be heard anywhere. It's cute, and looks/sounds that way.

Little elephant.

The Verdict

As an educational tool and a way to give that aging PlayStation 2 a little more life, Alphabet Circus isn't really a bad idea, nor are any of the other offerings in the Kids Playground series -- even if they tend to share a few too many games (read: almost all of them) between the different packages. If you're looking for a good way to keep your kids in shape out of the gate but aren't quite ready to start throwing them on seven footer DDR marathons, look no further.